


Scenes From A...

by Ladycat



Series: Shadow'verse [16]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Episode: s05e22 The Gift, Found Families
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-12
Updated: 2014-02-12
Packaged: 2018-01-12 03:06:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1181175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladycat/pseuds/Ladycat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>hese are how traditions start up, she knows. Rote patterns that are important because they are important. Their inceptions aren’t</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scenes From A...

The kitchen tiles are bright enough to be blinding, reflected light tossed into the room to disarm and dazzle. It makes it hard to work but Dawn is _hungry_. She can put up with spots in front of her eyes if it means food comes that much faster. “Pass me the cumin?”

“Sure, Dawnie.”

It’s kind of weird how Willow keeps saying her name, effusive grins lurching into being whenever she thinks Dawn is looking at her. Actually, it’s not so much kind of weird as kind of deeply annoying. And maybe a little scary. Willow looks horrible whenever she does that, like she’s got clown make-up greasy and caked all over her skin, twisting her into something unrecognizable.

“Hey.” Dawn sets the wooden spoon down. It leaves a thick red stain on the counter but she doesn’t mind; it’ll wash. “Are you okay? You’ve been kind of... strange. Since you got home.”

“Sure! Of course I’m fine! I mean, it’s—it’s a skippitty-doo-dah day.” Willow nods until the ends of her hair start flying. Her eyes are locked firmly on the carrots she chopped, her knife _chomp, chomp, chomping_ steadily. She’s good at multi-tasking. One day, Dawn wants to be that good at multitasking, instead of having to concentrate so she doesn’t accidentally chop one of her fingers off.

Still, multitasking _weirdness_ is probably not a good thing. “Uh huh,” she says, stressing the second syllable. Trying not to frown herself cross-eyed, she picks up the red, curved utensil with prongs around the rim the circumference like a bizarre kind of spork and dips it into the pasta water. The noodles are all still clumped at the bottom, barely visible through the cloudy white water.

“So how was school?” she tries. Conversation has gone through fits and starts since the moment Tara abandoned them in the kitchen, claiming she had to see to something with the boys. Dawn’s pretty sure she was lying—Tara’s not that good at lying, sometimes—but since she’s not sure what the truth is, it doesn’t really matter. Just because she knows something’s wrong doesn’t mean she knows what’s _right_. And worrying is never good. “I mean, um, summer classes?”

She offers a smile, hoping to get the usual nose-wrinkle in return—they’re both in summer classes, Dawn because she missed so much regular school, and Willow because she’s the over-achiever-type. But Willow only makes that pained, false smile that feels like the awful mask Mom brought home that created zombies. “It was great. Was yours great? I mean, okay, I know you don’t think history is all that great, but did the—did what you and Spike talk about help?”

“Um. Yeah, a little. It’s kinda neat, having a first-person perspective.” Normally this is a topic Dawn can warm to easily; not now. “So which classes did you have?”

“Oh, piffle, you don’t want to hear about that,” Willow gushes. The salad looks like a Goughan painting, all lush colors and large, leafy greens. Tara likes spinach in her salad. Willow likes arugula, but makes sure they buy an actual head of romaine instead of the pre-cut-up iceberg Xander always whines for.

Dawn stops, ignoring the hissing blue flame that rises steadily only a few inches from the side of her hand. It’s hot. “Um, yes? I do? I like hearing about your classes, I always have and... ” She trails off. Outside, she can hear Tara and Xander talking quietly as they work on the garden; the occasional grunt of effort. Tobacco smoke leaks through the window and whenever Willow smells it she frowns, but the wind is going in a different direction so it’s mostly Dawn who smells it and she doesn’t mind. It’s comforting.

“And what, Dawnie?” Willow asks, falsely cheerful.

Okay. That’s enough. She crosses her arms, hip leaning against the oven as she glares the fiercest glare she can manage. “Willow Rosenberg, what is going on? And don’t look at me like that. You’ve been weird for the last _week_ and today you’re acting like—like really bad Stepford wives! What’s up?”

“Nothing!” Willow says, still falsely bright and cheerful—until she slumps, staring morosely at a cucumber that never did anything to her. “Stupid poker-faces,” she complains, but there’s a sincerity and truthfullness back that has Dawn taking a deeper, relaxed breath. “I’m always so bad at that. Um. So... Tara thinks I’m avoiding you.”

Dawn isn’t nearly as stupid or innocent as they think she is. She raises an eyebrow, maintaining her laser glare, sharpened after weeks of cowing Spike and Xander into meek obedience. “Uh uh. And by that, you mean that—” Oh. Right. Dawn shifts, suddenly, poking at the pasta because the answer is kind of really obvious now that she thinks about it, and she doesn’t want to think about it anymore, now that she has. Swallowing, she tries a tactful way of saying it—because if she doesn’t, Tara will, and that’ll be a hundred times worse—and can’t come up with anything. So she takes a leaf out of Spike’s book and goes as simple and blunt as possible. Just nicer: “You’re jealous.”

It’s not an accusation but Willow still flinches. “What? No, I’m not. Who would I be jealous of?”

Except now that Dawn’s thinking again, it’s obvious. The first few weeks are still something of a blur, a montage of hurting and tears and Spike’s soft voice weaving stories to cocoon her in safety, and Dawn knows allowances can be made for that. She was hurting, she was bereaved and orphaned and lost, of course she’s going to cling and even obsess about things.

Okay, more like vampires than things, but still. It’s tolerable then. Expected, almost, because Dawn is still a little kid in Willow’s eyes, and little kids don’t act rationally.

But it’s been months now. School’s going to start in only a few weeks and Dawn isn’t the scared, partly-regressed kid she was, the one who’d curl up on Xander’s lap while he smelled of wood shavings and musky strength. The one who put her head on Tara’s stomach and listened to a heart beat slow and steady and solid against her ear, while Tara sings her lullabies Spike later learns the melodies for.

Now she’s a real person again, one that has been avoiding Willow almost as much as Willow avoids her. 

Knowing it’s the truth doesn’t make it hurt any less, so she fiddles with the pasta and sauce, stirring with both arms just because she has to concentrate, the muscles that surround her armpits twinging oddly at the unusual exercise. “You—you used to kind of... freeze.”

Willow turns huge, stricken eyes on her and Dawn has to close hers. She doesn’t know how to make this any easier.

“Whenever I came near you,” Dawn says, “you used to freeze. And after a few seconds you’d go to Tara and kind of hide behind her, or talk to Giles or—or yell at Spike. Or Xander.”

“I wasn’t—Dawnie, I wouldn’t—”

“I know.” And she does. She’s always known this. Trying to force her smile wider, the better to stop her lips from trembling, Dawn makes herself open her eyes and look at Willow. “I know, Willow. It wasn’t _me_.”

Outside, a bird trills. Clouds wave over crystal blue skies. The bubbling water sounds almost obscene against nature’s quiet hush.

Willow clears her through. “... it was her.”

It’s almost anticlimactic. Everything’s about Buffy, not just the patrols they—well, everybody but Dawn—struggle through, or the house that needs to be cared for, or the way it’s her friends that rally around Dawn because she doesn’t _have_ any other friends who can help. 

It’s also the little things, like when they clean the living room and Dawn spends an extra few moments on the table by the picture window. It’s scarred and rickety by now, the legs uneven from abuse, but Buffy always made sure it was spotlessly clean. Dawn thinks it has something to do with Angel, but she doesn’t know and honestly doesn’t care. All that matters is that Buffy did it this way, the way she always folded her towels all backwards and too long, and Dawn makes sure she does the same.

These are how traditions start up, she knows. Rote patterns that are important because _they_ are important. Their inceptions aren’t.

“When you’d look at me,” Dawn says. Her voice wavers but doesn’t crack. “You wouldn’t see _me_. You saw Buffy’s little sister. And it’s not—it’s not really a bad thing, you know? It isn’t. Because I _am_ Buffy’s little sister. And you—you were her best friend. And you needed to grieve,” and now her voice cracks, fragmented and wet, “you _still_ need to grieve and—”

It’s why Giles keeps his distance too, no matter what he says about work or not spending time with that poncy excuse for an unstaked vampire. Because they can’t see her without seeing Buffy. Because they were closest to Buffy, her father and her sister, the way Dawn’s new family wasn’t.

Not even Xander, in a way.

And thinking that hurts.

She doesn’t know when she starts crying, just that Willow’s shoulder is warm and solid as her tears fall into it, and that her own shoulder grows wet as well. She holds on as tight as she can, the way she does with Xander and Spike, so much bigger and stronger than she is so she never worries about squeezing too hard or hurting them. She holds on until she can feel Willow’s heartbeat, quick and frantic like a bird’s, pressed up tightly against her own.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I miss you.” Willow echoes and repeats it, over and over, until the pasta water overflows and splashes with a loud hiss, the flame spiraling upward, blue and flickering orange.

It’s Tara who turns off the heat and drains the pasta. Spike takes care of the sauce—he’s a spice-freak, so he has to add some more of this and that—while Xander gets the dishes. They’re not quiet, caught up in an argument about what kind of flowers to plant for the coming fall while plates clatter and pots bang and silverware adds a bell-chime on top.

Neither Dawn nor Willow help. They’re still hugging, still clinging to each other, and that’s okay. Because they’re the quiet part of this particular symphony, the flutes and the violins that will raise their voices later. When it’s time.

“Ready?” Tara asks. The table is set and Xander and Spike are already seated, Spike pushed towards the kitchen wall to avoid the fading sunlight. Tara has a smudge of red sauce on her face. So does Xander. It makes them look like they were kissing instead of stealing bits of Spike-altered sauce, to make sure it isn’t suddenly too spicy or just plain gross.

“Yeah,” Willow says. Her smile is as watery as a Cassatt painting, but it’s genuine for the first time in a while. “We’re ready.”

Willow sits next to Tara, the way she always does, but instead of tucking herself between Xander and Spike like a protected damsel, Dawn moves her chair so that it’s next to Willow. She’s close enough that she can feel the edges of Willow’s fuzzy pink t-shirt, and sometimes their elbows collide as they reach for things. 

They never say sorry.


End file.
